4 ms·

> The belief that people increasingly flit from job to job is also not borne out by fact. Over the past two decades the share of oecd workers who have been in t

> The belief that people increasingly flit from job to job is also not borne out by fact. Over the past two decades the share of oecd workers who have been in their job for less than a year has hovered around 20%, with no clear trend up or down. Who has ever said that people increasingly switch between jobs in less than a year? Off the bat, I can't find an exact statistic, but what the author is saying here seems like a gross exaggeration of the actual narrative. My understanding of the narrative is that people used to stay at companies for years or even decades. I know many of my parents generation whom have worked at the same company for at least a decade. Most of my friends in my generation are well educated(and not engineers), but have been changing jobs every 1 to 2 years. Generally, that seems to be the expectation of today. Changing companies in less than a year is not the new normal, and I haven't heard anyone suggest otherwise. I don't see how what the author is saying here demonstrates that the "belief that people increasingly flit from job to job is also not borne out by fact."

pavpanchekha 7y ago
If you switch between jobs once every five years, then 20% of the time you've been at your current job for under a year. That's what that 20% measures—not people who left in under a year, but people who left within the last year (which is easier to measure). If that rate goes up, people must be switching jobs more often; if it goes down, people must be switching less.
ghaff 7y ago
>Generally, that seems to be the expectation of today. I'm not sure it's the expectation in most places. A decade or more in one place certainly seems (much) rarer than it used to be. But resumes that show routine hopping from job to job every year or two is still going to raise eyebrows at a lot of companies. Perhaps less so in Silicon Valley. And, as you say, less than a year usually indicates either a company that shut down/shrank or some serious expectations mismatch on the part of either the company or the employee.
lostmymind66 7y ago
I used to work a salaried job. The problem is that there is no more loyalty to employees. I've gotten let go in the past not because of performance, but because it was cheaper to replace me with a developer from India. I've been contracting for the past decade and nearly tripled my income. If a client decides to end my contract, I can find another one in about a week (my record was 3 days). I really have no more loyalty to any company and because I'm contracting, nobody is surprised that I have new clients every year or two.

pavpanchekha 7y ago

If you switch between jobs once every five years, then 20% of the time you've been at your current job for under a year. That's what that 20% measures—not people who left in under a year, but people who left within the last year (which is easier to measure). If that rate goes up, people must be switching jobs more often; if it goes down, people must be switching less.

ghaff 7y ago

>Generally, that seems to be the expectation of today. I'm not sure it's the expectation in most places. A decade or more in one place certainly seems (much) rarer than it used to be. But resumes that show routine hopping from job to job every year or two is still going to raise eyebrows at a lot of companies. Perhaps less so in Silicon Valley. And, as you say, less than a year usually indicates either a company that shut down/shrank or some serious expectations mismatch on the part of either the company or the employee.

lostmymind66 7y ago

I used to work a salaried job. The problem is that there is no more loyalty to employees. I've gotten let go in the past not because of performance, but because it was cheaper to replace me with a developer from India. I've been contracting for the past decade and nearly tripled my income. If a client decides to end my contract, I can find another one in about a week (my record was 3 days). I really have no more loyalty to any company and because I'm contracting, nobody is surprised that I have new clients every year or two.